If there was anything bipartisan about the speech it was that he embraced every bad big-government idea from both sides. If he prevails, the American public won’t get “choice and competition” as he proclaimed, but a one-size-fits-all government-prescribed health care plan that it dare not refuse and dare not challenge…

The fact of the matter is that not too many health care underwriters will survive such crippling mandates. Many of them will fold, causing further consolidation in the insurance marketplace–not more competition and choice. Last night the president declared–in the spirit of grand compromise–that he would be willing to wait a few years to give private insurers a chance to make more affordable plans available to all Americans. Only if they fail would the so-called public option, the government-run insurance plan so beloved of the left, be triggered. But that’s a rigged deal: The same legislation that sets up the trigger is putting in place the conditions that will eventually pull it. Obama is not backing off on his goal of eliminating private insurance–only offering a brief deferment.